This invention relates to a motor vehicle and particularly although not exclusively to a tractor for agricultural purposes.
Tractors are known which comprise an engine, a frame, a lifting device and a power take-off shaft, but they have the disadvantage that the power take-off shaft is located in or near the vertical longitudinal central plane of the tractor and so can be coupled by means of an auxiliary shaft with machines running for the major part at the side of the tractor track (i.e. working in a mitering position) only if the machine is provided at one end with an input shaft, so that these machine are not adapted to be driven symmetrically with respect to the tractor.
Machines having an input shaft in the middle of their effective width cannot readily be directly coupled with the power take-off shaft of a known tractor if they are to extend to one side of the tractor because the auxiliary shaft would have to be at a very large angle to the longitudinal plane of the tractor or the machine would have to be arranged at a relatively large distance from the tractor. This limits the versatility of machines attachable to a tractor or it compels the machine manufacturer to design two versions of each machine, one having an input shaft in the middle of the effective width and the other having an input shaft at one end of the effective width.
Examples of such machines are cultivators, harrows, weeders (for example, for orchards), while loading wagons operating in the mitering position also give rise to problems.